I mentioned the "kiddie pool on the deck" idea today during an 8 hour drive back to Jersey from my niece's wedding in Pittsburgh. My sister laughed hysterically knowing we had to listen to the same old "I never get to use my deck" lament from my father who hasn't sat on his deck in years long before I ever started this gardening thing last year. I'm going for it...LOL. Now I just have to find a kiddie pool after our killing frost which was abundantly clear when I saw the mailbox garden as we rounded the corner. Heavenly Blue MG hydra, Zinnia, Aegeratum and Cleome are all goners for the year. First thing tomorrow that bed gets cleaned out although the thought of it being bare isn't acceptable...LOL. Gotta buy some ornamental kale seeds with my last seed order for this year (?) so I'm ready to sow them midsummer next year. Stores and nurseries around here want $3. per cabbage...no way, Jose. You're right about putting plastic sheeting down first to protect the wood. There are stains where I had saucers under containers but luckily my father is considering laying that plastic decking material cross wise right over the wood that's there now since his many attempts at using weather proof paint haven't been weather proof at all. I just keep agreeing about what a great idea that is! The Agway I found in this county is holding a case of germinating mix for me. I can't leave it outside or it'll be like cement for winter sowing but still haven't figured out where I'm going to stash it. Already hid recycled containers under the ancient ping pong table in the basement...no one looks under there but me.

I went through the same thing about 1.5 years ago redoing our basement bath. Needed a corner shower, hated all the fiberglass options (have a Kohler fiberglass corner shower in the 2nd floor main bath and have only been 'so-so' happy with it). But, I didn't want to do a tiled shower because tile frankly isn't the ideal shower material. Grout is porous, meaning you need to do a full waterproof membrane beneath it, making the tile more or less cosmetic etc etc and grout just gets dirty. I went with a solid white (no marbling) cultured marble corner shower. The base is cast out of solid material - there is NO give in it - it is SOLID all the way through. The walls are panels of 1/2" thick solid material as well - NOT flimsy fiberglass. The base sits in thinset like a giant tile on the floor. The walls adhere to plain old drywall with silicone caulking (100% silicone). The inside corner is sealed with silicone and I have a trim piece on it to cover the seam which is also held on with silicone. This thing ain't gonna leak ever. Then we had custom glass cut for it. We started with a shower curtain, but quickly decided the glass enclosure was worth it. I'd strongly recommend looking at cultured marble as an option. Was the same price or less than a decent quality fiberglass kit and is way higher quality. I don't have much in the way of pics but here are a couple.

behaviorK - funny you mention a teacher getting into an annuity as part of her retirement planning. Just last week on Suze Orman, a teacher in CA called about this very thing. She was told the 403b was her only option and the caller didn't feel right about it. Suze told her not to contribute to it. At what age does this annuity mature? In the caller's case, it was at 85 YO, which is ridiculous. You may want to get your GF to suck up the 10% or just leave it and stop contributing to that 403b altogether. In the caller's case, she had not started contributing and Suze advised her not to. If she sucks the 10%, you should help her try to find a bit more aggressive fund in which to replace it and try to earn back some of the funds she lost in the surrender. Depending on her age, she can still invest in ROTH, traditional IRA's and have a nice nestegg. That is what Suze recco'd to the caller - to divert the money she would have allocated to this annuity to much more reasonable retirement savings. Whatever you do, she needs to stop the contributions to the annuity pronto and find another avenue - be it Vanguard or whatever else. I think the episode ran last Saturday, which means it repeats tonight with the new episode. If you have TIVO, record all SUze Orman shows and see if the ep with the specific question aired again. Like you, I"m surprised that the employer has such a crappy retirement plan.

I have some equity-based mutual funds, bought a number of years ago: some have a good growth record, but several don't. About 40 years ago, when I practised as a liberal Protestant clergyperson, some of my parishioners wondered how come I subscribed to financial periodicals. I told them that bread cost me the same price that it cost them, so learning how money works was important - perhaps especially so for me, as my annual income was quite likely lower than theirs. Further, since I lived in a church-owned house, when I retired, became disabled, or fired ... I'd have to provide my own housing - and that at a higher price than it was at that time. Personally, after over 20 years as a personal financial advisor, during the first year of which I sold mutual funds, but after that selling no financial products, I prefer to see people invest directly into stocks, when someone becomes knowledgeable about the markets, and has some asset base built up. It has been my understanding that markets usually average more like 7 - 8% over the long term, and if U.S.-based fund managers charge 1.5%, that's about 20% of the growth. A number of managers in Canada charge over 2% for basic equity-based funds, higher for some kinds: which is more like 25 - 30% of the average rate of growth. It is my understanding that Merriman, referred to above, is primarily interested in mutual funds - is he involved in selling them? There was a guy in this area that used to publish a book annually evaluating mutual funds, who doesn't any longer, I think, as he felt that there were more effective ways to fly. Some advisors have a system of buying stocks based on the Dow-Jones Average (e.g. "Dogs of the Dow" - high dividend payers, at low stock price) which has, over many years, provided a better rate of return than most of the mutual fund managers have achieved. I've not followed those results relative to the Dow - but a person who has evaluated a similar system based on the Toronto market has done better than 90% of fund managers, back-checked almost 30 years. Which means that I can put the fund manager's fees (and the trailer fees that they pay to the fund sales people) into my own pocket. Tonight I'm to attend a monthly meeting with about 20 other local subscribers to a major Canadian personal money management magazine, which carries no ads, so is totally subscriber driven. The local meeting has been in operation for over 10 years - I've been attending for about 6 or 7 years, I think. They approach money management from a variety of viewpoints: I've learned a lot there. Plus the course that stockbrokers take (over 20 years ago) and six courses leading to Chartered Financial Planner (only passed 5). Though they are a bit tough, would be useful for many individual investors, I think. Every one of us has a part-time job: learning how to manage money. Some do it much more effectively than others - and most of the others suffer for their ignorance/shortage of knowledge. Good wishes for effective management of your money - think of all of the extra hours of work you'll have to put in to build a comparable lifestyle, if you don't. I dislike seeing folks flush $50. bills down the toilet, so to speak. ole joyful